Electronic brain hacks are turning insects into robotic helpers

We're a long way from directly controlling human minds remotely,
but recent years have seen a string of breakthroughs in hacking the
minds of insects. Insect brains are probably the simplest
interesting brains, as insects can perform a range of tasks
(flying, smelling, carrying, etc.) with brains that have numbers of
neurons orders of magnitude less than those in complex vertebrates.
A fruit fly has around 100,00 neurons, compared to 85 billion in
humans.

So at the conjunction of neuroscience and robotics lie
insects -- their tiny brains still too complex to model completely,
but offering an easy way into modelling certain parts of the brain.
It's how engineers from Sheffield and Sussex universities can claim
they're preparing to upload the smell and sight parts of a bee's brain into a
bee-like flying robot, enmeshed with human-created software to
create a completely new "brain".

The hope is that the bee-bot could fly in areas that other
robots can't fit, like a collapsed building. And it makes sense to
use nature's own smell modules instead of developing new ones --
their combination of efficiency in size and operation is so far
unmatched by anything synthetic. A bee-bot could smell out
explosives in a warzone, or drugs in shipping containers, or any of
many other myriad uses, and actually go investigate. They can even
be used as little spies. Who would notice a fly sitting on the wall
of a meeting room?

A lot of research in the area of bug brains is being funded by
the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa), the
Pentagon agency which seeks out new technologies for military use.
It's not hard to imagine a future where drones are grown on farms,
with extra controls implanted at the larval stage -- a process developed
by bionic researchers at North Carolina State University.

It might well be terrifying for the beetle, too, if a beetle can
feel terror. The pack that the beetle carries on its back sends
impulses to the general regions responsible for controlling the
right or left wing muscles, which allows the "pilot" to effectively
control the beetle. The beetle is awake through all this, but the
human implant overrides its ability to control its own flight.
Another Darpa project managed similar results with a moth.

A significant problem with mounting wireless controls on flying
insects is the question of how to power them, since electronic
devices need electricity to run. A big battery will weigh a flying
insect down, but a small battery will run out faster. The flying
beetle relies on harvesting kinetic energy from the wings as they
flap, which helps, but that just wears the beetle out faster.
Research published this year by biologists and chemists at Case Western
Reserve University demonstrates the viability of a "biofuel cell"
that would convert food eaten by an insect into energy as the
insect eats. It's a much more efficient process than converting
kinetic energy (or any other kind of energy, like solar) into
electrical energy for implanted devices, and greatly improves the
prospect of being able to use bugs like drones or other robots.

Earlier this year Wired.co.uk reported on the development of remotely-controlled
cockroaches, which are a little easier to deal with as they don't
fly. In this case, the roaches don't have implants directly into
their brain or nervous system, but instead the electrical engineers
took advantage of the simplistic functions of cockroach antennae
and cerci, which are used to detect predators. By stimulating the
right side to make it seem like there is danger coming, it forces
the cockroach to the left, and vice versa. It's a subtler, easier
hack than direct brain implants -- kind of like how a rider
controls a horse.

That heralds another kind of mind control, one that isn't quite
as dystopian as the hacks for beetle and moth brains --
psychological hacks. In some cases it's easier to use external
stimuli rather than internal hacking of the nervous system to
achieve the same results. It could also potentially lead to tiny
robot cowboys, programmed to tame insects in the wild. We can
probably all agree that that would be good to see.

Insects have been sought out for mind control research because
of their relatively simple brains and their useful skills, but that
research feeds back into other areas that aren't
insect-related. Wired.co.uk reported last week on a new kind of bone-mounted robotic
arm, planned for trial in early 2013, that will be able to deliver
feedback directly into the patient's nervous system. That's the
same kind of graft, on a more complex level, as those we've seen in
insects.

Of course, that arm won't be able to take control of its owner
-- it's purely for sensory feedback -- but the implications for the
future confluence of robotics and neuroscience are fascinating.
Imagine motion capture devices that rely on nerve information
direct from the brain, instead of relying on cameras. The bee-bot
might well be the first step towards transhuman bionic
implants.

Edited by Nate Lanxon

Comments

This is cruel and i hope the people doing the experiments realise how cruel it is.

missy

Dec 6th 2012

This is a major issue for the future of the human race. The idea that an individual who has enhanced abilities due to brain implants being seen as 'better' than someone who has not is simply terrifying. If the scientists who suggest these types of inhuman experiments actually had to test their own brains I think it would be more fair.

matt

Jan 17th 2013

"It could also potentially lead to tiny robot cowboys, programmed to tame insects in the wild. We can probably all agree that that would be good to see."

This would be horrible. Most of our attempts to control natural populations end in failure, sometimes catastrophic. A predatory insect programed to eliminate something like the Emerald Ash Borer could easily get out of hand, mistaking serveral native species for their target. Setting aside future "domino effect" blowback, this could lead to additional extinctions.

Peter

Jan 31st 2013

"It could also potentially lead to tiny robot cowboys, programmed to tame insects in the wild. We can probably all agree that that would be good to see."

This would be horrible. Most of our attempts to control natural populations end in failure, sometimes catastrophic. A predatory insect programed to eliminate something like the Emerald Ash Borer could easily get out of hand, mistaking serveral native species for their target. Setting aside future "domino effect" blowback, this could lead to additional extinctions.

Peter

Jan 31st 2013

Oh come on! Of course the real danger here resides with the National Security Council. Oh, to be a fly on the wall...You want to find pictures of you and your wife in your bedroom in your NSA file?Anyone remember about that thing called Right to Privacy?Police departments around the country are buying drones now! Patroling borders and spying on everyone with intent to use them on disidents/protesters; on and on!